September 29: The Champion, Glory Days, Nobel Prize in Literature

Santiago recalls when he was a champion . . . 

As the sun set he remembered, to give himself more confidence, the time in the tavern at Casablanca when he had played the hand game with the great negro from Cienfuegos who was the strongest man on the docks. They had gone one day and one night with their elbows on a chalk line on the table and their forearms straight up and their hands gripped tight. Each one was trying to force the other's hand down onto the table. There was much betting and people went in and out of the room under the kerosene lights and he had looked at the arm and hand of the negro and at the negro's face. They changed the referees every four hours after the first eight so that the referees could sleep. Blood came out from under the fingernails of both his and the negro's hands and they looked each other in the eye and at their hands and forearms and the bettors went in and out of the room and sat on high chairs against the wall and watched. The walls were painted bright blue and were of wood and the lamps threw their shadows against them. The negro's shadow was huge and it moved on the wall as the breeze moved the lamps.

The odds would change back and forth all night and they fed the negro rum and lighted cigarettes for him. Then the negro, after the rum, would try for a tremendous effort and once he had the old man, who was not an old man then but was Santiago El Campeon, nearly three inches off balance. But the old man had raised his hand up to dead even again. He was sure then that he had the negro, who was a fine man and a great athlete, beaten. And at daylight when the bettors were asking that it be called a draw and the referee was shaking his head, he had unleashed his effort and forced the hand of the negro down and down until it rested on the wood. The match had started on a Sunday morning and ended on a Monday morning. Many of the bettors had asked for a draw because they had to go to work on the docks loading sacks of sugar or at the Havana Coal Company. Otherwise everyone would have wanted it to go to a finish. But he had finished it anyway and before anyone had to go to work.

For a long time after that everyone had called him The Champion and there had been a return match in the spring. But not much money was bet and he had won it quite easily since he had broken the confidence of the negro from Cienfuegos in the first match. After that he had a few matches and then no more. He decided that he could beat anyone if he wanted to badly enough and he decided that it was bad for his right hand for fishing. He had tried a few practice matches with his left hand. But his left hand had always been a traitor and would not do what he called on it to do and he did not trust it.

It's really not healthy to dwell on past glory days.  It makes you nostalgic for a time when you threw the winning touchdown or won the eight-grade spelling bee or published a poem in The New Yorker.  (Okay, if I published a poem in The New Yorker, I'd have that puppy framed and wear it on a chain around my neck.  If a person showed me a picture of their grandchild, I'd show them my New Yorker poem, which would probably be a little embarrassing after 20 or so years, I suppose.)

I know people who live in the past.  To a certain extent, I'm guilty of it, myself.  When I'm meeting a person in a professional setting, I may give a list of my accomplishments, including the fact that I served two terms as Upper Peninsula Poet Laureate.  I don't think I rest on my laurels at all, however.  I always try to push myself to be better.  Try harder.

This approach to life has allowed me to do amazing things.  Earn advanced degrees in creative writing.  Teach for 30 years.  Attend a poetry workshop led by Sharon Olds.  Star in musicals.  Direct musicals.  Publish a book of poems.  Be chosen as Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula twice.  Bring two beautiful children into the world.  Love my wife deeply for 30 years.  Host poetry readings by two U. S. Poets Laureate--Natasha Trethewey and Joy Harjo.

I have been able to do these things by looking forward, not backward.  By forcing myself to attempt things that scared the hell out of me.  Glory days are wonderful.  They remind you of really good times in your life.  Golden times when life was all birthday parties and Christmas presents.

Here is what I believe:  there's always room in your life for more glory days.  I still have big dreams for myself.  Trips I want to take (England, Italy).  Things I want to accomplish (publish another book of poems, win the Nobel Prize in Literature).  People I want to meet (Barack Obama, Stephen King).  

Dreams are just glory days in waiting.  Next week, the Swedish Academy announces this year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.  In seven days' time, someone will be living in their glory days.  And for a little while, I will be a part of that person's glory days, living them vicariously.

Saint Marty's blessing for today: new poems written in a writing workshop tonight.

March 12: All His Distant Friends, Joy Harjo, Cheerios in my Life

Santiago settles in under the stars . . .

"How do you feel, fish?" he asked aloud. "I feel good and my left hand is better and I have food for a night and a day. Pull the boat, fish."

He did not truly feel good because the pain from the cord across his back had almost passed pain and gone into a dullness that he mistrusted. But I have had worse things than that, he thought. My hand is only cut a little and the cramp is gone from the other. My legs are all right. Also now I have gained on him in the question of sustenance.

It was dark now as it becomes dark quickly after the sun sets in September. He lay against the worn wood of the bow and rested all that he could. The first stars were out. He did not know the name of Rigel but he saw it and knew soon they would all be out and he would have all his distant friends.

My favorite part of this passage--"he would have all his distant friends."

I've been an astronomy enthusiast my whole life--from the time I was about eight or nine and got a telescope for Christmas.  I spent many a night gazing at all my distant friends when I was a kid.  I remember the first time I looked at the moon's craters through my telescope and realized there were mountains and valleys out there in space.  It was a humbling revelation, making me realize how really tiny I was in comparison to everything in the universe.

This evening, I am in Calumet, Michigan, with my wife and son.  I'm here to write and perform in a radio variety show.  These weekends are always kind of a whirlwind of travelling, writing, rehearsing, and acting.  I get to meet and work with a lot of gifted and talented musicians and performers, many of whom I call friends.  

I sometimes wonder how I ended up living a life that has allowed me to do some of the things that I've done.  I've spoken with and interviewed three-time United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, the first Native American ever to hold that position.  I've spoken with and interviewed two-time United States Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey.  I still have both of their private cell phone numbers as contacts in my cell phone,  I sat in a room with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Sharon Olds for a whole week as she talked poetry, read poetry, and critiqued my poetry.  

I've published a collection of poems.  Released two spoken-word CDs of my poetry.  I was selected to serve as Upper Peninsula Poet Laureate.  Two times.  Consecutively.  I've directed plays and musicals.  Starred in plays and musicals.  I saw Lily Tomlin perform Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe on Broadway.  I met Alec Baldwin.  Saw Elie Wiesel speak in-person about the horrors of the Holocaust.  I touched Vincent Price.  

I have two beautiful, smart kids.  The cutest puppy in the world.  A couple jobs I love.

I don't go around bragging about all the things I've done.  All the brilliant people I've met.  Self promotion is not my thing.  I find people who feel the need to make themselves the brightest stars in the sky a little . . . boring.  They want to be moons and comets and Joy Harjos.  And they're really just bowls of Cheerios.  Bland and milky.

And Saint Marty has to pour a lot of sugar on the Cheerios in his life to make them interesting enough to eat.

November 16: Strangled Cry, Joy Harjo, Friend of Mine

Merton shares in the story of Holy Week . . . 

There was one thing the Cistercians had in their favor. The Carthusians had a kind of recreation in which they went out for walks together and conversed with one another, to prevent the possibilities of strain that might go with too uncompromising a solitude, too much of that sola beatitudo. Could there be too much of it, I wondered? But the Trappist with his unbroken silence—at least as far as conversations were concerned—had one advantage! 

And yet what did it matter which one was the most perfect Order? Neither one of them was for me! Had I not been told definitely enough a year ago that I had no vocation to any religious Order? All these comparisons were nothing but fuel for the fire of that interior anguish, that hopeless desire for what I could not have, for what was out of reach. 

The only question was not which Order attracted me more, but which one tortured me the more with a solitude and silence and contemplation that could never be mine. 

Far from wondering whether I had a vocation to either one, or from instituting a comparison between them, I was not even allowed the luxury of speculation on such a subject. It was all out of the question. 

However, since the Carthusians were, after all, far away, it was what I had before my eyes that tortured me the most. The Carthusians were more perfect, perhaps, and therefore more to be desired: but they were doubly out of reach because of the war and because of what I thought was my lack of a vocation. 

If I had had any supernatural common sense I would have realized that a retreat like this would be the best time to take that problem by the horns and overcome it, not by my own efforts and meditations but by prayer and by the advice of an experienced priest. And where would I find anyone more experienced in such matters than in a monastery of contemplatives? 

But what was the matter with me? I suppose I had taken such a beating from the misunderstandings and misapprehensions that had arisen in my mind by the time that Capuchin got through with me, in his confessional, the year before, that I literally feared to reopen the subject at all. There was something in my bones that told me that I ought to find out whether my intense desire to lead this kind of a life in some monastery were an illusion: but the old scars were not yet healed, and my whole being shrank from another scourging. 

That was my Holy Week, that mute, hopeless, interior struggle. It was my share in the Passion of Christ which began, that year, in the middle of the night with the first strangled cry of the Vigils of Holy Thursday.

Sharing in the Passion of Christ.  Through great suffering comes salvation and joy.  

That's what I want to talk about.  Joy.

Last night, I had the privilege of being in a Zoom meeting with U. S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo.  Around 6:45 p.m., I was sitting in front of a computer in my office, waiting.  I'd spent the entire day preparing for the moment.  Practicing with the technology.  Writing and rewriting my introduction for Joy.  Answering dozens of texts and emails.  It was chaotic.  Exciting.  Exhausting.

At 6:50 p.m., Joy Harjo's name appeared on my screen.  A few seconds later, I was having a conversation with the Poet Laureate of the United States.  The first Native American to hold the position.  Only the second person in history to hold the title for three consecutive terms.  Joy.

It was one of the greatest moments of my life.  In a time of personal struggle and loss.  

Here's the thing--it's easy to lose sight of joy when faced with darkness.  Last night, there was music and celebration in the library where I work.  People coming together to celebrate.  For an hour, I sat in in the presence of Joy.  Basked in joy.  Drove home in joy.  Drank a glass of wine with joy.

Tonight, I am thinking about a friend of mine who has taught me a great deal about what joy is all about.  Spreading joy has been her life's work.  She's seen me through some very difficult times in my life.  She's taken my hand in darkness and led me back to light.  Made me laugh in the middle of sorrow.  Given me poetry in moments of profound silence.

The saying goes that the price of love is grief.  I'm not sure what the price of joy is.  Tears, maybe.  Despair, perhaps.

Saint Marty gives thanks tonight for his joy mentor.

February 5: The Game is Open, Carnival Barkers, Free Will

 Merton takes a gamble . . . 

A carnival came to Bradford. To us that meant a couple of Ferris wheels and a bingo game and the “Whip” and a man wearing a white uniform and a crash helmet being fired out of a cannon into a net. We got into the car and started out along the Rock City road, through the dark woods alive with the drumming of the oil-pumps. 

It was a big carnival. It seemed to fill the bottom of a narrow valley, one of the zig-zag valleys in which Bradford is hidden, and the place blazed with lights. The stacks of the oil refinery stood up, beyond the lights, like the guardians of hell. We walked into the white glare and the noise of crazy electric music and the thick sweet smell of candy. 

“Hey, fellows, come over this way if you please.” 

We turned our beards shyly towards the man in shirt sleeves, hatted with a felt hat, leaning out of his booth. We could see the colored board, the numbers. We approached. He began to explain to us that, out of the kindness of his big foolish heart, he was conducting this game of chance which was so easy and simple that it really amounted to a kind of public charity, a means for endowing intelligent and honest young men like ourselves with a handsome patrimony. 

We listened to his explanation. It was not one of those games where you won a box of popcorn, that was evident. In fact, although it started at a quarter, the ante doubled at every throw: of course, so did the prize, and the prize was in dollars. 

“All you have to do is roll the little ball into these holes and...” 

And he explained just what holes you had to roll the little ball into. Each time you had to get a new and different combination of numbers. 

“You put down a quarter,” said our benefactor, “and you are about to win two dollars and fifty cents. If you should happen to miss it the first time, it will be all the better for you, because for fifty cents you’ll win five dollars —for one dollar you’ll take ten—for two you’ll take twenty.” 

We put down our quarters, and rolled the little balls into the wrong holes. 

“Good for you,” said the man, “now you stand a chance of winning twice as much.” And we all put down fifty cents. 

“Fine, keep it up, you’re getting ready to win more and more each time— you can’t miss, it’s in-ev-i-table!” 

He pocketed a dollar bill from each of us. 

“That’s the way, men, that’s the way,” he exclaimed, as we all rolled the little ball into the wrong holes again. 

I paused and asked him to go over the rules of the game a second time. He did, and I listened closely. It was as I thought. I hadn’t the vaguest idea what he was talking about. You had to get certain combinations of numbers, and for my own part I was completely unable to figure out what the combinations were. He simply told us what to shoot for, and then rapidly added up all the numbers and announced: 

“You just missed it. Try again, you’re so close you can’t fail.” And the combination changed again. 

In about two and a half minutes he had taken all our money except for a dollar which I was earnestly saving for the rest of the carnival and for beer. How, he asked us, could we have the heart to quit now? Here we were right on the point of cleaning up, getting back all our losses, and winning a sum that made us dizzy: three hundred and fifty dollars. 

“Men,” he said, “you can’t quit now, you’re just throwing away your money if you quit. It doesn’t make sense, does it? You didn’t come all the way out here just to throw away your dough? Use your heads, boys. Can’t you see you’ve got to win?” 

Rice got that big grin on his face that meant “Let’s get out of here.” 

“We haven’t any more money,” someone said. 

“Have you any traveler’s checks?” the philanthropist inquired. 

“No.” 

But I never saw anyone so absorbed and solemn as Lax was, at that moment, in his black beard, with his head bowed over all those incomprehensible numbers. So he looked at me and I looked at him, and the man said: 

“If you want to run home and get a little more money, I’ll hold the game open for you—how’s that?”

 We said: “Hold the game open, we’ll be back.” 

We got into the car and drove, in the most intense silence, fifteen miles or whatever the distance was to the cottage, and fifteen miles back, with thirty-five dollars and all the rest of the money we had: but the thirty-five alone were for the game. 

When the benefactor of the poor saw the three of us come through that gate again, he really looked surprised and a little scared. The expressions on our faces must have been rather frightening, and perhaps he imagined that we had gone home not only to get our money but our guns. 

We walked up to the booth. 

“You held this game open for us, huh?” 

“Yes, indeed, men, the game is open.” 

“Explain it over again.” 

He explained it over again. He told us what we had to get to win—it seemed impossible to miss. We put the money down on the counter and Lax rolled the little ball—into the wrong holes. 

“Is that all, boys?” said the prince of charity. 

“That’s all.” We turned on our heels and went away. 

Merton the gullible.  He and his friends fall victim to two things:  a grifter and their own prides.  I've been to many of those carnival midways--as most people have--where people bark at you from inside their booths, trying, by hook or by crook, to get you to stop and lay down some cash.  And the results are pretty much what Merton describes here:  you shell twenty dollars for a sickly goldfish in a plastic bag of water.  Or you walk away empty-handed.

When I was younger, I allowed myself to get lured in by these barkers.  Walking along with my girlfriend, a man chewing a cigar shouting at me, "Hey, lover boy, want to win something for that pretty girl of yours?"  Trying to rush my children past the booths, a tattooed woman calling out, "Hey, kids, don't you want to take home a unicorn as big as you?"  The messages are always different, tailored to the situation and carnival goers.  But it's all about temptation--the game runners size you up for your weaknesses and then go to work.

As a kid, going to Catholic catechism, I would hear the story of Christ being tempted by the devil in the desert after 40 days of fasting.  I always pictured the devil as a carnival barker, offering Jesus the biggest stuffed animal on the sandy midway.  Of course, Jesus doesn't surrender to this conman.  Because . . . well, He's God.  Christ recognizes that the game is rigged.  There is literally no human way to win.

Every day is like that for humans.  We  make choices, from the time we climb out of bed in the morning to the time we crawl back in at night.  The carnival barkers are all there, vying for our attentions.  We make good choices (an apple and oatmeal for breakfast) and bad choices (a bottle of watermelon wine and Little Caesar's pizza for dinner).  It's all about free will.

I'm not a big fan of free will a lot of the time.  Because many of the people who I love make terrible choices, every day, all day.  It's so easy, as Merton learns in the passage above, to get suckered by the lights and smells and excitements of the carnival games.  In the end, however, most of us leave the fairgrounds broke and broken.

Yet, free will is what makes life interesting, I suppose.  The world would be pretty boring if everyone ate the same things, dressed the same way, read the same books, listened to the same music, liked the same movies.  Without free will, I wouldn't be a poet.  Because the world doesn't put a high value on poetry, unless you happen to be Amanda Gorman or Joy Harjo.  Instead, I'd be an accountant or doctor or plumber.  Something utilitarian.  

So, free will is a double-edged sword.  It allows abusers to be abusers.  Saints to be saints.  Trump supporters to be Trump supporters.  Poets to be poets.  You have to take the good with the not-so-good.  I'm not saying that poetry is the equivalent of losing all your money at a carnival ring toss game.  What I'm saying is that free will leaves room for poetry, but it also for porn addiction.

I chose to ask my wife to marry me.  She chose to marry me.  We chose to have children.  I chose to be a poet and contingent university professor.  I chose to have three glasses of Bailey's Irish Cream mixed with eggnog tonight.  And to watch The Man Who Invented Christmas because Christopher Plummer died today.

Like I said, every day is about possibilities, with very few opportunities for do-overs.  I'm lucky because I wouldn't change a whole lot about my life.  I would still marry my wife, despite all of the struggles we've faced because of mental illness and addiction.  I would still be a father, regardless of the fact that my son seems headed for a repeat of seventh grade.  And I would still be a poet, though it will never buy groceries or pay the water bill.  All of these choices were winning hands for me.

Saint Marty knows when to hold 'em, and knows when to fold 'em. 

June 24: Poem from "Kyrie," Lamentations, Hope

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

I cried unto God with my voice . . . he gave ear unto me.
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord;
     my sore ran in the night, and ceased not;
     my soul refused to be comforted.
I remembered God, and was troubled;
     I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed.
I am so troubled I cannot speak.

Will the Lord cast off for ever?  Is his mercy
     clean gone for ever?  doe his promise fail
     for evermore?  Has God forgot to be gracious?
     has he in anger shut up his tender mercies?

Who is so great a God as our God?
     who has declared his strength among the people?

                    *********************

This poem.  Tonight.  It sort of captures my current state of mind and heart.  A lamentation, very much like ones in the Biblical psalms.  Starting out in utter despair and darkness, and moving toward something akin to hope and praise.

I'm not sure I'm quite at the stage of hope and praise yet, though.  Still in the muddy trenches, fighting my way out of a pretty bruising battle with the blues.  I'm searching for the sun, but it's nowhere in my skies at the moment.  However, I'm going to try to write my way to some kind of miracle tonight.

I know, on the vast scale of tragedy and turmoil in the world, my problems are microscopic.  I'm not starving.  Or homeless.  My health is pretty good.  I have two great kids.  Jobs that mostly pay the bills, albeit not always on time.  My daughter finished her first year of college with a 4.0 GPA.  Pretty good considering how Covid-19 ended the semester on such a surreal note.  My son is funny and strong-willed, two qualities that will help him greatly succeed in the future.  Like I said, I've hit the jackpot in a lot of ways.

Yet, I'm truly struggling in other parts of my life.  Seeing things fall apart, and I'm not able to put them back together.  Because of that, I'm feeling like a complete failure, even though I've done everything in my power to avoid this collapse.  Yet, now all I can do is stand back and watch the forest burn to the ground.

So, where in all that mess do I find my miracle tonight?  At the end of every lamentation comes a ray of light.  That's how lamentations work.  Usually, it goes something like this:  But in you, O God, I seek refuge.  You are my strength and courage.  You are my hope.  

Emily Dickinson says that "'Hope' is the thing with feathers--/That perches in the soul--".

Gerard Manley Hopkins writes "Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God."

Joy Harjo says that the world "begins at the kitchen table.  No matter what, we must eat to live."

So, searching for that feathered thing in my ribs, wrestling with my Higher Power, I sit at my kitchen table with my son, listen to him play video games with his friends, shouting at them, laughing, speaking a language of computer I can only appreciate like I appreciate someone speaking Portuguese.  Loving the sounds without the attachment of meanings.  I consume this moment like chocolate cake, dark and sweet.

And for that kitchen table miracle, Saint Marty give thanks.

June 22: Dreamers, Joy Harjo, "Invisible Fish"

I'm thinking a lot about dreams this morning for some reason.  Maybe it's because I've spent the last couple months preparing for and witnessing my daughter's high school graduation.  There's a whole lot of talk about dreams and ambitions during these moments.  You can see it in the kids' eyes, too.  Their gaze is focused somewhere on the horizon, where the future exists like some wavering scene from a favorite movie.  Star Wars: A New Hope or Raider's of the Lost Ark.

I have a poem about dreams from the newly named Poet Laureate of the United States.  I love Joy Harjo, because so much of it contains this beautiful, almost-dream imagery.

Saint Marty has his eye focused on the horizon today, as well.  He sees Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Invisible Fish

by:  Joy Harjo

Invisible fish swim this ghost ocean now described by waves of sand, by water-worn rock.  Soon the fish will learn to walk.  Then humans will come ashore and paint dreams on the dying stone.  Then later, much later, the ocean floor will be punctuated by Chevy trucks, carrying the dreamers' descendants, who are going to the store.

June 21: Summer Solstice, Joy Harjo, "An American Sunrise"

I have another Joy Harjo poem for all of you this Summer Solstice evening.  One of my favorites.

Saint Marty is going to go dance naked in the woods now.

An American Sunrise

by:  Joy Harjo

We were running our of breath, as we ran out to meet ourselves.  We
were surfacing the edge of our ancestors' fights, and ready to strike.
It was difficult to lose days in the Indian bar if you were straight.
Easy if you played pool and drank to remember to forget.  We
made plans to be professional--and did.  And some of us could sing
so we drummed a fire-lit pathway up to those starry stars.  Sin
was invented by the Christians, as was the Devil, we sang.  We
were the heathens, but needed to be saved from them--thin
chance.  We knew we were all related in this story, a little gin
will clarify the dark and make us all feel like dancing.  We
had something to do with the origins of blues and jazz
U argued with a Pueblo as I filled the jukebox with dimes in June,
forty years later and we still want justice.  We are still America.  We
know the rumors of our demise.  We spit them out.  They die
soon.

June 20: Whalemeat, Dukkha, Chicken Pot Pie

The planet of Magrathea is not what the crew of the Heart of Gold expected . . .

Trillian hugged herself, shivered and frowned.  She could have sworn she saw a slight and unexpected movement out of the corner of her eye, but when she glanced in that direction all she could see was the ship, still and silent, a hundred yards or so behind them.

She was relieved when a second or so later they caught sight of Zaphod standing on top of the ridge of ground and waving for them to come and join him.

He seemed to be excited, but they couldn't clearly hear what he was saying because of the thinnish atmosphere and the wind.

As they approached the ridge of higher ground they became aware that it seemed to be circular--a crater about a hundred and fifty yards wide.  Round the outside of the crater the sloping ground was spattered with black and red lumps.  They stopped and looked at a piece.  It was wet.  It was rubbery.

With horror they suddenly realized that it was fresh whalemeat.

At the top of the crater's lip they met Zaphod.

"Look," he said, pointing into the crater.

In the center lay the exposed carcass of a lonely sperm whale that hadn't lived long enough to be disappointed with its lot.  The silence was only disturbed by the slight involuntary spasms of Trillian's throat.  

"I suppose there's no point in trying to bury it?" murmured Arthur, and then wished he hadn't.

The results of an innocent sperm whale suddenly appearing miles above the planet and then plummeting to its inevitable death.  The Heart of Gold crew are confronting the results of engaging the Improbability Drive and causing a death.  It's a painful moment for some of them.

Of course, in life, pain is inevitable.  If you are a human being, you will experience heartbreak, loss, and grief.  Think about it.  With the first breath you take, you begin the process of dying.  It may be 80 or 90 years away.  It may be hours away.  The march of time in unavoidable.

Not surprisingly, Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama have some words to share about dealing with pain in life.  The first Noble Truth of Buddhism is that life is filled with dukkha (the stress and anxiety that arise from the attempt to control what is fundamentally impermanent and unable to be controlled).  Thus, dukkha can consist of dealing with your mother who has Alzheimer's or watching your sister die of lymphoma of the brain.  You want to control these circumstances, make your loved one whole and well again.  But you can't.  So, you experience dukkha. 

The Dalai Lama says, "People would like to be able to take a pill that makes their fear and anxiety go away and makes them immediately feel peaceful.  This is impossible."

The Dalai Lama is not (and I'm not) discrediting the use of psychiatric drugs to deal with conditions like depression or bipolar or schizophrenia.  Those are medical conditions that require (for most people) the use of medications to alleviate the pain caused by them.  My wife benefits daily from such prescriptions.  What the Dalai Lama is talking about is something deeper--a discontent or void that seems bottomless, filled with fear and anxiety. 

This void could exist in your job or in your home.  The natural reaction to these feelings of emptiness is to try to find something to fill that hole.  Some people turn to drugs.  Some to food.  Some to pornography.  Some to indiscriminate sex with strangers.  There's a reaching for an immediate fix, and these pleasures that I've just listed provide (for a very brief moment) pleasure.  However, after that very brief moment, those anxieties and fears return, and the void seems even deeper and darker.

Of course, the answer to dukkha doesn't exist anywhere outside of yourself.  It is a matter of acceptance and letting go.  I can't control anything but my own reaction to bad things.  My attitude makes the difference.

So, the lesson of joy for today is that pain is inevitable.  I will stub my toe.  I will lose people whom I love.  I will worry about my children.  However, if I recognize my powerlessness in these situations and give them up to my Higher Power, I will be able to reestablish the joy in my day-to-day existence.

Saint Marty is letting go tonight, and celebrating the grace of a chicken pot pie for dinner.

And a poem that touches upon letting go/emptying yourself from the newly named Poet Laureate of the United States, Joy Harjo . . .

Ah, Ah

by:  Joy Harjo

Ah, ah cries the crow arching toward the heavy sky over the marina.
Lands on the crown of the palm tree.

Ah, ah slaps the urgent cove of ocean swimming through the slips.
We carry canoes to the edge of the salt.

Ah, ah groans the crew with the weight, the winds cutting skin.
We claim our seats.  Pelicans perch in the draft for fish.

Ah, ah beats our lungs and we are racing into the waves.
Though there are worlds below us and above us, we are straight ahead.

Ah, ah tattoos the engines of your plane against the sky--away from these waters.
Each paddle stroke follows the curve from reach to loss.

Ah, ah calls the sun from a fishing boat with a pale, yellow sail.  We fly by
on our return, over the net of eternity thrown out for stars.

Ah, ah scrapes the hull of my soul.  Ah, ah.

November 18: Joy Harjo, "Perhaps the World Ends Here," the Kitchen Table

Perhaps the World Ends Here

by:  Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

_______________________________

A little poem about the importance of the kitchen table for this Thanksgiving week.  I know I've used it before, but it's so appropriate for the upcoming holiday.

Some of the most important family conversations happen in the kitchen, around the table of eating.  It's where people let their guards down because they are simply hungry for what's in front of them.  That's when truth can be dished up with mashed potatoes.  Hurt can be sweetened by pecan pie.  Pain can be salted and seasoned with onion. 

Saint Marty gives thanks for dinner conversation.

July 21: Joy Harjo, "Praise the Rain," All-Day Soaking

Praise the Rain

by:  Joy Harjo

Praise the rain; the seagull dive

The curl of plant, the raven talk—

Praise the hurt, the house slack

The stand of trees, the dignity—

Praise the dark, the moon cradle

The sky fall, the bear sleep—

Praise the mist, the warrior name

The earth eclipse, the fired leap—

Praise the backwards, upward sky

The baby cry, the spirit food—

Praise canoe, the fish rush

The hole for frog, the upside-down—

Praise the day, the cloud cup

The mind flat, forget it all—

Praise crazy. Praise sad.

Praise the path on which we're led.

Praise the roads on earth and water.

Praise the eater and the eaten.

Praise beginnings; praise the end.

Praise the song and praise the singer.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

_________________________

This poem, by Joy Harjo, is perfect for this morning, where there seems to be an all-day soaking going on. 

I was going to mow my lawn.  Not happening.  I've switched plans.  This afternoon, I will be cleaning my house, getting it ready for members of my book club to descend upon it tomorrow evening.  Vacuuming.  Sweeping.  Mopping.  Dusting.  Bathroom cleaning.  Perfect for a rainy day.

Tomorrow, it's cooking and arranging.

Saint Marty would rather be reading and writing, but that is not in the stars today.  Can't see the stars.

December 27: End of 2017, Joy Harjo, "Remember"

We are almost at the end of 2017.  For me, it's been a pretty good year, personally.  I wish I could say the same for the rest of the world.

When people think back on this year, they will probably remember it as the year of Trump.  That makes me a little sad.

Saint Marty will remember the last 365 days a little differently.  They were full of poetry and happiness and celebration.

Remember

by:  Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

November 28: Negative Capability, Joy Harjo, "Grace"

I have no updates on my friend's daughter.  You may think this strange, but I don't want to call my friend.  She is dealing with enough at the moment.  She doesn't need me telephoning to pry details out of her.  I will simply exist in a state of Negative Capability right now, not needing all the answers.

Because of this, I have been thinking about grace in its many forms.  Some people, after my sister died of lymphoma of the brain, said to me, "Well, she's out of pain.  That's a blessing."  At the time, I didn't feel like it was a blessing.  It wasn't grace.  It simply sucked ass.

However, I am not one to question how grace works in my life or other people's lives.  I simply wait for grace to come my way.  Then I take it, cook it with eggs and bacon, and eat it with a glass of wine.

Saint Marty sends some grace to his friend this evening.

Grace

by:  Joy Harjo

I think of Wind and her wild ways the year we had nothing to lose and lost it anyway in the cursed country of the fox. We still talk about that winter, how the cold froze imaginary buffalo on the stuffed horizon of snowbanks. The haunting voices of the starved and mutilated broke fences, crashed our thermostat dreams, and we couldn’t stand it one more time. So once again we lost a winter in stubborn memory, walked through cheap apartment walls, skated through fields of ghosts into a town that never wanted us, in the epic search for grace.

Like Coyote, like Rabbit, we could not contain our terror and clowned our way through a season of false midnights. We had to swallow that town with laughter, so it would go down easy as honey. And one morning as the sun struggled to break ice, and our dreams had found us with coffee and pancakes in a truck stop along Highway 80, we found grace.

  
I could say grace was a woman with time on her hands, or a white buffalo escaped from memory. But in that dingy light it was a promise of balance. We once again understood the talk of animals, and spring was lean and hungry with the hope of children and corn.

  
I would like to say, with grace, we picked ourselves up and walked into the spring thaw. We didn’t; the next season was worse. You went home to Leech Lake to work with the tribe and I went south. And, Wind, I am still crazy. I know there is something larger than the memory of a dispossessed people. We have seen it.

October 14: Wedding Anniversary, Joy Harjo, "This Is My Heart"

My wife and I are celebrating our 22nd wedding anniversary today.

We have had our struggles and dark times, that's for sure.  But we are here.  Together.  Loving each other.  Loving our kids.  Celebrating birthdays and Halloweens and Christmases.  Watching fireworks on Independence Day under the milk of stars.  Holding each other in times of grief.  Laughing together in times of joy.  Kissing each other at the end of each and every day.  For twenty-two years.

Saint Marty is thankful today for his beautiful wife.

This Is My Heart

by:  Joy Harjo

This is my heart.  It is a good heart.
Bones and a membrane of mist and fire
are the woven cover.
When we make love in the flower world
my heart is close enough to sing
to yours in a language that has no use
for clumsy human words.

My head, is a good head, but it is a hard head
and it whirrs inside with a swarm of worries.
What is the source of this singing, it asks
and if there is a source why can't I see it
right here, right now
as real as these hands hammering
the world together
with nails and sinews.

This is my soul.  It is a good soul.
It tells me, "Come here forgetful one."
And we sit together with lilt of small winds
who rattle the scrub oak.
We cook a little something
to eat, then a sip of something
sweet, for memory.

This is my song.  It is a good song.
It walked forever the border of fire and water
climbed ribs of desire to my lips to sing to you.
Its new wings quiver with vulnerability.
Come lie next to me, says my heart.
Put your head here.
It is a good thing, says my soul.

October 12: Tired but Fulfilled, Joy Harjo, "Anything That Matters"

I spent this evening in the city of Munising, and the Munising Public Library.  I met some wonderful people who are passionate about books and reading and poetry.  I don't get to say that very often.  When I meet people like that, I feel hope for the future. 

I did a reading with my poet friend, Beverly Matherne.  There was nice crowd.  Eight or ten attendees.  For poetry, that's like a rock concert.

Saint Marty is tired but fulfilled.  He is thankful today's blessings, including a great pesto and provolone sandwich from the Falling Rock Cafe.

Anything That Matters

by:  Joy Harjo

Anything that matters is here.  Anything that will continue to matter in the next several thousand years will continue to be here.  Approaching in the distance is the child you were some years ago.  See her laughing as she chases a white butterfly.

October 11: Full Day, Joy Harjo, "The Creation Story"

My day is full.

As I sit in my office, waiting for a student to show up for a conference, I am running through my "to do" list.  It's long.  Aside from my last batch of student conferences, I have to go shopping at Walmart, pick up a prescription for my son, correct some student papers, and attend my daughter's choral concert tonight.

It's on days like today that I wish I was less responsible.  If I were, I would blow off my conferences, skip Walmart, "forget" my son's medicine, and have a headache during my daughter's concert.  But I am responsible.  It's the way I'm wired.  Can't help it.

Oh, by the way, I still have to work on a couple new pieces or writing, revise my Halloween poem (which is a creation myth), and read for my online class.

Saint Marty is ready for the sun to set.

The Creation Story

by:  Joy Harjo

I'm not afraid of love
or its consequences of light.

It's not easy to say this
or anything when my entrails
dangle between paradise
and fear.

I am ashamed
I never had the words
to carry a friend from her death
to the stars
correctly.

Or the words to keep
my people safe
from drought
or gunshot.

The stars who were created by words
are circling over this house
formed of calcium, of blood

this house
in danger of being torn apart
by stones of fear.

If these words can do anything
if these songs can do anything
I say bless this house
with stars.

Transfix us with love.

October 10: Dairy Queen, Joy Harjo, "It's Raining in Honolulu"

It has been a long day of work and student conferences again.  I want a vacation.

England or Greece or Italy sound nice.  I'd even settle for something a little closer--Big Sur or Mount Rushmore or the Grand Canyon.  Heck, I'd even take a trip to Dairy Queen for a Blizzard at the moment. 

On days/weeks like this, I really think back to the time my wife and I spent in Hawaii on our honeymoon.  I remember hiking over a mile of black igneous in Volcano National Park.  It was night, and the stars were like milky clouds of gnats in the sky.  When we reached the edge of a cliff, we looked out across a bay.  Lava was pouring into the Pacific, an orange tongue licking the salt.  And the sound of it hitting the water was deafening.  A Jurassic roar.

Saint Marty needs to go back to Hawaii.

It's Raining in Honolulu

by:  Joy Harjo

There is a small mist at the brow of the mountain,

each leaf of flower, of taro, tree and bush shivers with ecstasy.

And the rain songs of all the flowering ones who have called for the rain

can be found there, flourishing beneath the currents of singing.

Rain opens us, like flowers, or earth that has been thirsty for more than a season.

We stop all of our talking, quit thinking, or blowing sax to drink the mystery.

We listen to the breathing beneath our breathing.

This is how the rain became rain, how we became human.

The wetness saturates everything, including the perpetrators of the second
     overthrow.

We will plant songs where there were curses.

October 9: Writing a Poem, Joy Harjo, "Faith"

Because it is my birthday month, and because I saw Joy Harjo perform on my birthday, and because Joy Harjo is fierce and amazing, I am bestowing the honor of Poet of the Week on Joy Harjo. 

I was asked to write a poem for a Halloween spectacle taking place this October 28 in Marquette, Michigan.  I struggled.  Tore more of my hair out (and I don't have that much to spare).  Rubbed my head until it gleamed (I use it as a kind of stress ball).  Nothing worked.  Then, I saw Joy Harjo read last Thursday and bought her book.

Her myth poems gave me the inspiration that I needed.  I finished my poem last night, polished it a little this morning.  At 10 a.m., I wasn't embarrassed to share it at the meeting I attended with the directors of the spectacle.

So, Saint Marty owes Joy Harjo a little faith this week.

Faith

by:  Joy Harjo

In Krakow
The spires of churches
Fit the skyline exactly
They have been rendered
By prayers of the faithful
Who built the church on their knees
My faith is a limp thing
In this distant city
Strung together
With cold rains
And clouds
Crows mark the border
Between despair
And joy
They are
Poets of noise--
Needed, because the question
Is too large to fit
One city, one church,
Or one country
I am far away from the answer
Wherever I go
This dark month
Of the overthrow
The sleep of idiots
Would be sweet
But disastrous
I might miss
The feet of god
Disguised as trees.

October 4: Magic Fingers, PTSD, Joy Harjo

Billy went into his bedroom, even though there were guests to be entertained downstairs.  He lay down on his bed, turned on the Magic Fingers.  The mattress trembled, drove a dog out from under the bed.  The dog was Spot.  Good old Spot was still alive in those days.  Spot lay down again in a corner

Billy is recovering from a moment of PTSD.  As I've said in recent posts, Slaughterhouse is a book about PTSD that masquerades as science fiction and social criticism.  Billy is unstuck in time, constantly reliving his wartime experiences.

I only have a few moments this evening for reflection, on PTSD or war or science fiction.  All of those subjects are up for grabs with this little passage.  However, in a little over an hour, I will be teaching my evening class.  First semester composition.  Three hours and some minutes long.  I still need to eat dinner, meet with a colleague about online teaching, and carry some books out to my car. 

This week has been flying by.  Tomorrow is Saint Marty's Day.  Tapioca and Diet Mountain Dew for everyone.  My holiday celebration is going to include a Joy Harjo poetry reading, followed by a Joy Harjo book signing.  At the moment, however, I'm so tired that I feel like I could fall asleep right now and not wake up until next October 5th. 

If I had a bed with Magic Fingers, I would flip the switch, lay down, and let my mattress tremble me to oblivion.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for caffeine and pizza.

November 29: Book Club, Classic Saint Marty, Confessions of Saint Marty

This evening, my book club is meeting at my house.  Our Thanksgiving read was Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio.  My wife is at home, making a cream cheese pumpkin pie for the occasion.  Yesterday afternoon, I vacuumed, swept, and mopped the floors.  Cleaned the bathroom last night.  I think we'll be in pretty good shape by 6 p.m.

It has been a dreary day, in keeping with my general mood.  Tomorrow, I go back to work and teaching.  The next two weeks are going to be a whirlwind of grading and school programs and concerts.  Next Saturday is my daughter's fifteenth birthday.  Then, next Sunday, I am performing in a Christmas benefit concert with my band.  We are selling our Christmas CD and raising money for a local homeless shelter.  If I reach the end of the semester without going insane, it will be a yuletide miracle.

At the beginning of the holidays every year, I tell myself that I'm not going to let myself get stressed and anxious.  That I'm going to take some time to relax, enjoy Christmas and New Years without the usual array of anger and worry.  I have never kept that oath.  Ever.

So, on this First Sunday of Advent, I once again make a vow to relax a little.  Bake some cookies, not because I have to, but because I want to.  Not go crazy with gift buying.  Find Christmas presents with meaning versus Christmas meaning with presents.  That is my goal this year.  I don't expect to meet it, though.

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired one year ago, at a time when I was mourning the loss of a very good friend.

November 29, 2014:  Her Old Web, Joy Harjo, "Perhaps the World Ends Here"

In the days that followed, he was very happy.  He grew to a great size.  He no longer worried about being killed, for he knew that Mr. Zuckerman would keep him as long as he lived.  Wilbur often thought of Charlotte.  A few strands of her old web still hung in the doorway.  Every day Wilbur would stand and look at the torn, empty web, and a lump would come to his throat.  No one had ever had such a friend--so affectionate, so loyal, and so skillful.

Overcoming grief is a gradual process.  Wilbur learns this fact.  He returns from the Fair brokenhearted, and, over the months that follow, he gradually adjusts to the rhythms of barn life without his friend, Charlotte.  Eventually, he is able to experience happiness again.  It takes time, like all healing.

Today, for the first time since Thanksgiving night, I have not felt overwhelming sadness all day.  It overcame me at times, but I was able to have extended moments of grace, where I had pleasant, happy memories of my friend, Ray.  And that's the way that he would want it.  I know that for a fact.  Ray was not a maudlin person.  He always looked for the humor in any situation.

For example, earlier this fall, I was sitting next to him at a poetry reading.  He was speaking to me about his weeping feet.  That is a medical term.  It means his feet were swollen and, basically, leaking blood.  It's very serious, but he laughed and said, "I thought it was stigmata, but then I remembered that starts at the opposite end."  I laughed and said, "Saint Ray of the Weeping Feet."  "You bet your ass," he said.

That was Ray.  In the days and weeks to come, those happy memories will replace the sorrow of his absence.  Healing will take place.  That's what Ray would want, too.  The quicker the better.

I have a sort-of Thanksgiving poem from Joy Harjo tonight.  It's a poem about love and grief, pain and healing.  She gets it right.  Those big things of life really do start in small places like the kitchen table.

So Saint Marty will meet you in the kitchen in a few minutes.  Get out the cheesecake, and we'll have a Golden Girls moment.

Perhaps the World Ends Here

by:  Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

Confessions of Saint Marty

December 6: Good-bye, Sad Day, Joy Harjo, "Mourning Song," New Cartoon

"Good-bye!" she whispered.  Then she summoned all her strength and waved one of her legs at him.

The last words Charlotte speaks in the book.  The last action she performs.  A farewell to her best friend, whose life she has just saved.  After this paragraph, she basically disappears.  Retreats from the narrative and dies.  For me, it's the saddest paragraph in Charlotte's Web.

It has been an extremely sad day.  This morning, I attended the funeral for my colleague Ray.  Sixty-six years old.  Father.  Teacher.  Mentor.  Beloved friend.  The mass at Saint Peter's Cathedral was beautiful.  When the choir began singing "Panis Angelicus" at the beginning of the service, I began sobbing.  It went downhill from there.  By the end, I was pretty much a red-eyed, snotty mess, as were all my other friends from the English Department.  There will never be another person like Ray, who truly knew the definition of the word "servant."  He lived to help people.

I'm pretty tired this evening.  Emotionally drained.  In the days to come, I will pick up the pieces of my life in the English Department and move on.  Somehow.  There is a huge, Ray-sized vacuum in the halls and offices.  Today was the end and the beginning.

Joy Harjo has a poem about grieving that I think is appropriate for this evening.  It comes from her book The Woman Who Fell From the Sky.  

Farewell, Ray.  My friend.  I mourn you.  Miss you.  Will never, ever forget the lessons you taught me.

Saint Marty is a better person because of you.

Mourning Song

by:  Joy Harjo

It's early evening in the small world, where gods gamble for good weather as the sky turns red.  Of grief rattling around in the bowl of my skeleton.  How I'd like to spit you out, turn you into another human, or remake the little dog spirit who walked out of our house without its skin toward an unseen land.  We were left behind to figure it out during a harvest turned to ashes.  I need to mourn with the night, turn to the gleaming house of bones under your familiar brown skin.  The hot stone of our hearts will make a fire.  If we cry more tears we will ruin the land with salt; instead let's praise that which would distract us with despair.  Make a song for death, a song with yellow teeth and bad breath.  For loneliness, the house guest who eats everything and refuses to leave.  A song for bad weather so we can stand together under our leaking roof, and make a terrible music with our wise and ragged bones.

Confessions of Saint Marty

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